Contents

Story

The story of Prince of Persia: Assassins would have focused on a female assassin who was among a group of many that protected and rescued a young prince as his personal bodyguards.[1][2]

Background

Development

Near the end of 2003, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time's creative director Patrice Désilets was set to work on the next Prince of Persia by Ubisoft Montreal. However, Désilets felt unsure of proceeding with another Prince of Persia game. “The problem is that a prince isn’t an action figure,” he explains. “A prince is someone who’s waiting to become king.”[1]

Using references from a history book, Désilets began to formulate a concept based on the society of the "Asasiyun", later known as assassins, founded by the Muslim missionary, Hassan-i-Sabbah. The Asasiyun's feared reputation for killing political and religious figures on their master's order, allowed Désilets to rework concept not around the Prince of Persia, but those who protected him: Assassins.[1]

The game was later titled Prince of Persia: Assassins. For the better part of a year of pre-production in 2004, gameplay developed for the game centered around protecting a young prince in Jerusalem who had to be rescued by the player and escorted to safety. “It’s funny when I talk about it, because I know it would have been a good game. You were an assassin, so a killer and a fighter, and you had to save the princess. Only the princess was really a boy – a prince with special powers.”[1]

When Désilets pitched the concept to Ubisoft, they rejected the idea, as it did not focus on the Prince of Persia but his bodyguards. From there, the team responsible for developing the The Sands of Time moved to complete what would become Assassin's Creed.[1]

In May of 2012, Ubisoft's official facebook page released concept art by Khai Nguyen of what would've been the setting of Prince of Persia: Assassins. The news was later reported by Kotaku.com.[3][2] That same month, Eurogamer.net reported the discovery of concept trailer that was leaked on Twitter.com.[4][5]

Trivia

Prince of Persia: Assassins was originally intended to be a co-op game.[6]